Shawna X Can Have It All

Shawna X is an independent artist and creative based in New York, known for her vibrant, visceral and highly graphical image-making across mediums in digital, spatial, and motion spaces. She creates experiences in music, fashion, and technology, collaborating with the likes of Adidas, The New Yorker, Warby Parker, and Ghostly International. Shawna's work addresses themes like cultural identity, the creative process and more recently, motherhood.

During the conversation, Shawna opens up about how her work has evolved with recent life changes, and why sometimes that means letting go of certain clients. As she's grown as an artist, Shawna's priorities have shifted. "More than the money, more than the project, it's the people you're making work with...No project is really that glamorous." She also investigates what exists beyond surface-level goals. For Shawna, the bigger picture is freedom: of the mind, from pressures of society, from labels of motherhood and cultural expectations. The audience who she feels she has something to prove to is an audience of just one: her daughter Ren.

In this episode, you will learn that doing CrossFit while pregnant is probably not the best way to train for childbirth. Also, how having doubt and self-sabotaging your work and maybe your sanity alongside that doubt can be a valuable part of the creative process. This is a conversation we were really excited to have and it does not disappoint.

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SHOW NOTES:

Shawna X (Instagram / Working Not Working / website)
Adam JK's "I literally do not know what I'm doing" hat
F*** Your Manners exhibition
Shawna's partner Collin Hughes
Zipeng Zhu
Hassan Rahim makes Shawna jealous